<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<b>Concentrationary Imaginaries/Imaginaries of Violence Conference</b>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="2">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="right"><b>Location:</b></td>
<td><a
href="http://www.h-net.org/announce/geography.cgi?geography=United%20Kingdom">United
Kingdom</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right"><br>
</td>
<td><br>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right"><br>
</td>
<td><br>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="right"><br>
</td>
<td><br>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table width="90%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>C e n t r e for Cultural Analysis, Theory & History <br>
A Transdisciplinary Initiative @ the University of Leeds<br>
Director: Professor Griselda Pollock
<p>Concentrationary Imaginaries/Imaginaries of Violence <br>
in Contemporary Cultures and Cultural Forms
</p>
<p>Keynote Speakers: <br>
Andrew Benjamin (Monash) Adriana Cavarero (Verona) <br>
Paul Gilroy (LSE) Ian James (Cambridge) <br>
Samuel Weber (Northwestern)Paul Willemen (Ulster) <br>
With a plenary by Zygmunt Bauman (Leeds)
</p>
<p>An international transdisciplinary conference <br>
organized by the AHRC Research Project <br>
Concentrationary Memories: The Politics of Representation <br>
directed by<br>
Griselda Pollock <br>
(Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History) <br>
and Max Silverman<br>
(Centre for French and Francophone Cultural Studies)
</p>
<p>April 13-15, 2011<br>
University of Leeds
</p>
<p>In 1946 French Trotskyist political deportee to Buchenwald
coined the
phrase ‘concentrationary universe’ to describe the terrifying
sociological experiment in total destruction of humanity in which,
according to Hannah Arendt, ‘everything is possible’. Our question is :
has anything of the concentrationary universe seeped into and been
disseminated through contemporary culture? Going beyond the work of
Agamben and Virilio who suggest that the camp and war are now the
matrices of modern society, we want to enquire into cultural forms and
subjectivities. Is there now a concentrationary imaginary? What would
be its indices, symptoms, locations, tropes and affects? Where might we
find it? Is the concentrationary a dimension of heightened violence, of
fantasies of apocalyptic, end-of-time confrontations, of the manner in
which ‘others’ are projected as both fascinating and deadly? Is it
about thoughtlessness and amnesia? Has it been eroticised and stylized
via fascist kitsch? Has it found a home or a counter-imaginary in
science fiction? Is it linked with images of pestilence, viral
contamination, deadly epidemics? What might resist its seepage and
normalization?
</p>
<p>Far from being contained as a one-off, geopolitically
contained
event, the Nazi-created concentrationary and its horrific extension,
the exterminationary, initiated the political novelty that Arendt
defined as totalitarianism. Totalitarianism was an experiment in the
destruction of the human, which Arendt came to identify with
spontaneity and plurality. Not confined to the Third Reich, the
concentrationary was a feature of Stalin’s Soviet Union but also in
differing guises is typical of racist societies and dictatorships. If
the political lessons of the concentrationary universe led Hannah
Arendt to seek to refound a basis for social life in the human
condition, is the concentrationary imaginary continuing to put
humanity, or our humanity, at risk?
</p>
<p>In this conference we wish to investigate the often oblique
manifestations of the legacies of the concentrationary in diverse forms
of contemporary culture from literature, to cinema, and video games.
Can aspects of the increasing obsessions with violence in media culture
be related to an unacknowledged concentrationary legacy? Where is the
concentrationary most visible? Is it identifiable by a lack of
conscious memory that might continuously warn of its menace? In what
forms has the concentrationary continued in political realizations, but
also in their underlying imaginations and in imaginary forms? Where
might we locate its signs? What are its effects on the subjectivities
such cultural manifestations help to shape?
</p>
<p>We suggest the following areas for the study of the emergence,
persistence and transmogrification of a concentrationary imaginary and
for seeking to challenge the continuing menace of that which the
concentrationary universe and gulags initiated in the heart of
twentieth century Europe.
</p>
<p>Post Holocaust Political Theory<br>
Fascinating Fascism<br>
Science Fiction and the Concentrationary Empire<br>
Contemporary Apocalyptic Art :Images of Fear<br>
Popular Culture, Racism and Others<br>
Counter-concentrationary Imaginaries<br>
Dark Times: Arendt’s Legacies in Cultural Theory and Practice<br>
Cinema and the Concentrationary Imaginary<br>
Identifying Sites of Cruelty<br>
Agamben and the Camp
</p>
<p>To submit an abstract for a 20 minute paper please go to:</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/cont_men2/cont_mem_2.html">http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/cont_men2/cont_mem_2.html</a>
to download a proposal form or send directly to: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:conmem@leeds.ac.uk">conmem@leeds.ac.uk</a>
marked Concentrationary Imaginaries Conference 2011.
</p>
<p>Deadline: 1 November 2010.
</p>
<p></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table bgcolor="#eeeeee" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0"
width="90%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#330066" valign="top" width="1"><img
src="cid:part1.01060805.05050404@kulturad.org" alt="" height="1"
width="1"></td>
<td width="100%">
Francesco Ventrella (assistant)
<br>
CentreCATH
<br>
School of Fine Art, Old Mining Building
<br>
University of Leeds
<br>
LEEDS
<br>
LS2 9JT, UK <br>
E-mail: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:conmem@leeds.ac.uk">conmem@leeds.ac.uk</a>
<br>
T: +44 [0]113 343 5267
<br>
F: +44 [0]113 245 1977
<br>
<br>
<br>
Email: <a href="mailto:conmem@leeds.ac.uk">conmem@leeds.ac.uk</a><br>
Visit the website at <a href="http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/index.html#">http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/index.html#</a></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</body>
</html>